Tea Cup Cafe — Restaurant in Sacramento

Most dim sum places we've been to in HCOL areas, $5.50 would be a modest small dish with some morsels on the small side. When the food here arrived here, not only were they high quality (below for details), the portion sizes were eye bogglingly large by our standards. Also considering what some other restaurants in this city charge for dishes, the dim sum here and insane value. We had ordered something like 8 dishes because that would have been one meal for two where we've been, so we ended up taking back three boxes!

Some of the dishes didn't qualify for the Mon-Thur discount, I'm not sure how it works, but even so, it feels like everything is heavily underpriced for the quantity, quality, ambience, and service. The same size dishes would be at LEAST double what we were charged here.

The turnip cakes were huge - perfectly seared and crispy on the surface and turnipy and soft inside. The potstickers were two of the biggest potstickers I've seen. Like empanadas basically. The two alone would be great for a single meal imo. Because they were so big, the breading was a bit thicker, but that made the ratio perfect bc it's a giant meatball inside.

The salt and pepper squid was not too salty per another review - perhaps they saw the review bc it actually seemed a bit undersalted, which was fine because there were plenty of dipping sauces provided from all of the dishes.

The sweet meat "bbq pork" and green beans were top notch, and I really wished I had the appetite to have more of the sesame balls while they were fresh because it is best that way - shell so perfectly crispy crunchy and mochi/sweet red bean paste inside.

I have had better soup dumplings (at more specialized soup dumpling places), but the ones here were good too, just not the star of the show.

I can't speak to how these same dishes would taste via take out, particularly the fried foods that do not transport well in closed boxes.

They also serve chrysanthemum tea if you do not want caffeine late night, which I appreciated.

Atmosphere is good. Not linen napkin fine dining, but tastefully decorated and well within what you'd expect at this price point. They have large tables for bigger groups as well.

The silken Chinese embroidery artwork on the far wall is worth a peek if there aren't diners under it - even the calligraphy is embroidered (pics below)!

Loved this place, great value for excellent food and...

I would not have known tea cup cafe is a dim sum place if someone didn’t recommend it to me lol! It seems very authentic for the most part, everything was very tasty, and it was all super affordable too!

We came in here like let’s go all in splurge for my bday dinner!! and left extremely full with just a $35 bill. It’s nice places like this still exist. Good asian food that isn’t painfully marked up.

Great Soup dumplings, the largest I’ve ever seen. Good xiu mai and har gow. Nice and dense. Quality tasting.

Okay spare rib with black bean.. Pretty awkward to eat because the meat does not come easily off the bone.

For dessert, great Sesame balls, larger than normal. They come hot with a super crisp shell and a satisfying chewy texture inside, definitely try it if dining in! We wanted to try their egg tart but they didn’t have it that day, maybe next time!

Lastly, the lobster turnovers. Really annoyed i fell for the review hype. I mean how can I resist when someone was even saying they drive from far away for this lol! It was our most expensive dish and the worst value in my opinion. Very deep fried. Took one bite. Luckily my partner finished the rest, but he agreed it was a regretful order.

Dining in was pleasant, tables were a little close but lots of seating. There is one waiter guy. Classic authentic Asian service, efficient and not overly friendly haha just catch their attention if you need anything. You use an expo marker on their laminated menu to mark what dishes you want.

This place is great. I liked journey to the dumpling a lot too but that place was like 11-14$ for each dish! Tea cup cafe is my dimsum go to for sure, I’d need a good reason to go somewhere else! Come over on weekdays for...

We ordered quite a bit of dom sum. Food arrived and was very tasty. After about 45 minutes, we asked for boxes and our check. We paid and got up to leave, but they hadn't served us the lobster and crab dim sums we'd ordered (we ordered so much, we forgot about those 2 plates). We told them that we had to leave and in an effort to not have them re-ring our bill, We told them they could just give the two orders of dim sum to a customer who was already in the restaurant eating. They said it would just be a couple more minutes and to wait and walked away. I will minutes later I told them I really needed to leave. They said it was almost done. I wasn't angry that they forgot, because after all, I forgot too. But that they wouldn't just give it to another customer was disappointing. I don't think that they did not understand what I was suggesting that they do... But because they wouldn't do that, and they kept telling us to wait, we ended up being late returning to work, and got in trouble for it.

I would return to this restaurant because the food is delicious, and the environment is clean. The people are nice, and they serve soup to you from the bowl instead of just bringing you two little bowls of soup. I would definitely and will definitely continue to be a patron. But going forward, I will make it a point to remember what I ordered lol, and verify that I've gotten everything up front. I'll also try not to go there at my lunch break, rather go in the evening...